For China’s Local Officials, a New Test

In recent days, local officials have been more measured and informed when they tell people they have to leave. Luo Yuhua, 77, sat calmly Thursday afternoon under a leaking tarp strung between bamboo poles along a main highway, fingering the evacuation notice she had just been handed.

“The government told me a tent has been set up over the mountain and they have prepared sausages, noodles and rice,” she said. She was told that she did not have to leave right away but that someone on a motorbike would ride up the highway banging a gong when the time came to go, signaling it would be four or five hours before the floodwaters reached her area in Longmen town.